(photo: Modesto Bee)
FAMOUS QUOTE
Double Rainbow Guy:
“Whoa, that’s a full rainbow. All the way. Double Rainbow. All the way. It’s a double rainbow all the way. Whoa. So intense. Whoa. Man. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa!!! My God!!! Oh my God! Oh my God! Woooo! Oh Wow! Woooo! Yeah!!! Oh my, oh my, oh my God look at that. It’s starting to look like a triple rainbow. Oh my God. It’s full. Double rainbow all the way across the sky. Oh my God. (audible sobs). Oh God. What does this mean? Oh my God. It’s so bright. Oh my God it’s so bright and vivid. Oh. Oh. Oh. It’s so beautiful. (audible sobs). Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Double complete rainbow. Right in my front yard. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!! Oh my God. What does this mean? Tell me! It’s too much. I don’t know what it means. Oh my God. It’s so intense. (big sigh). Oh my God.”
–3-minute YouTube video, recorded January 2010
Henry David Thoreau:
“I stand in awe of my body, this matter to which I am bound has become so strange to me. I fear not spirits, ghosts, of which I am one… but I fear bodies, I tremble to meet them. What is this Titan that has possession of me? Talk of mysteries!—Think of our life in nature,—daily to be shown matter, to come into contact with it,—rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! The solid earth! The actual world! The common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? Where are we?”
–“Ktaadn and the Maine Woods,” 1848, from The Maine Woods
VITAL STATISTICS
DRG: Organic farmer; divorced; two children; currently has girlfriend; 265 pounds (was 465)
HDT: Transcendentalist; proposed marriage to Ellen Sewall in 1840 but was rejected; never dated again; generally considered homely
FORMER CAREER
DRG: Cagefighter, dog breeder, firefighter, long-haul truck driver
HDT: Schoolteacher, pencil manufacturer
NICKNAMES
DRG: Born Paul Vasquez, known as Hungry Bear and Yosemite Bear
HDT: Born David Henry Thoreau; went by Henry David after college
CULTURAL INFLUENCES
DRG: Participates in Native American ceremonies
HDT: Read East Asian philosophy
FACIAL HAIR?
DRG: Yes
HDT: For many years; thought women found it attractive
PRIMARY GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION
DRG: Yosemite National Park
HDT: New England
UNDER THE INFLUENCE?
DRG: For this video, no, but admittedly yes for others he has posted
HDT: “I would fain keep sober always… who does not prefer to be intoxicated by the air he breathes?”
FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES
DRG: Jimmy Kimmel
HDT: Ralph Waldo Emerson
MEANS OF SELF-REFLECTION
DRG: 250 videos uploaded to YouTube documenting his experiences near Yosemite
HDT: 40 journals covering twenty-four years of his life, running nearly two million words
POPULARITY
DRG: Over 3 million views on YouTube
HDT: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849): 100 sold, 75 given away; Walden (1854): 2,000 copies sold over the course of five years; The Maine Woods (1864), published posthumously
FAMOUS MORAL STANCE
DRG: Purist who will not accept ad revenue for YouTube video: “I’m not opposed to making money, I just don’t want to degrade it or disrespect it.”
HDT: Abolitionist who would not pay poll tax. Did not recognize authority of a government “which buys and sells, men, women, and children, like cattle at the door of its senate-house.”
ON WHY HE HAS SUBLIME EXPERIENCES
DRG: “It’s not about me. I’ve always told people that the universe flows through me. I’m just a vessel.”
HDT: “Sometimes, when I compare myself with other men, it seems as if I were more favored by the gods than they.”
LEGACY
DRG: Has spawned numerous mash-ups on YouTube, including “The Autotune Double Rainbow Song” and “Double Rainbow Connection Remix” featuring Kermit the Frog
HDT: His writings influenced Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, B.F. Skinner, Willa Cather, Edward Abbey, Frank Lloyd Wright, and many others.
Happy Birthday, David Henry, born July 12, 1817.
... and everyday life 